History

Amidst social trends shifting towards urbanization, most people work in organizations and spend at least 7-8 hours a day there. Therefore, feelings of happiness or suffering mainly come from the workplace or work, which may affect personal and family life. Since organizations focus primarily on profit goals and benefits for the company and customers to survive, they introduce various internal and external innovations as tools to change and develop people and work for the better. Most innovations still focus on improving work quality and efficiency to achieve the same success goals. Conversely, workers' happiness decreases because their minds are not at peace, constantly worrying that their work will not succeed or meet the organization's goals, causing continuous stress accumulation. This leads to other problems such as health issues, relationship problems with family and colleagues. These problems result in boredom, unwillingness to work, and frequent job changes. It can be seen that organizational success and employee happiness are clearly opposite.

From this situation, the Thai Health Promotion Foundation's (ThaiHealth) workplace health promotion plan, which drives health promotion according to the 10-year direction, goals, and strategy of ThaiHealth, uses the WHO's Healthy Workplace Framework as a driving force. This aligns with ThaiHealth's Happy 8 initiative, supporting workplace well-being according to the concept of creating a happy organization in 8 dimensions, especially Happy Soul, which is mental happiness with morality, faith in Buddhism, and ethics in life, called living mindfully. Therefore, the Department of Mental Health together with the Mindfulness in Organization Project has developed the Mindfulness in Organization (MiO) Program, creating mindfulness that does not emphasize religious principles but psychological principles that everyone of any religion can apply in organizations and daily life.

The MiO Program (Mindfulness in Organization) is a program aimed at promoting people to have good mental health, happiness at work, and emphasizes learning through practice. It trains people to have high mental states: mindfulness and concentration as tools (Metaskill) leading to good personal qualities such as empathy for others, responsibility, and positive thinking. These will result in better work efficiency, better relationships with colleagues, calmness through mindful listening, mindful communication, creative thinking, and problem-solving abilities at individual, team, and organizational levels. This aligns with the Department of Mental Health's policy under the concept of 'Think well, Think for others, Think right, Be happy.'